Can bio-crops really end world hunger?

George Bush says GM food will be Africas salvation. Margarette Driscoll talks to the experts

If nine-tenths of politics is telling people what they want to hear, President George W Bush showed his skills to the full last week when he spoke at Bio 2003. About 5,000 members of America’s biotech industry were gathered in Washington DC to celebrate the 10th birthday of Bio, their trade organisation, and a burst of applause rang out as Bush took to the platform.

The biotech boys have been feeling cold shouldered of late. They have been shut out by the European Union, which has so far declined to allow genetically modified crops to be grown on European soil. They were humiliated last year when Zambia declined a shipment of GM grain — even though the country faced famine — and have been vilified for developing and patenting so-called terminator genes, designed to stop crops producing seed for the next harvest (which would end generations of seed sharing and put poor